State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

A California County Supervisor's Wisdom on Regulating Legalized Marijuana

Route Fifty: COLUMBUS, Ohio — For officials in states where marijuana is completely illegal, the topic is fairly cut and dried—no pun intended.

In those states, marijuana is a criminal justice issue. It’s by no means simple—but at the very least it can be somewhat easily confined to a particular silo.

Sorting through the ins and outs of cannabis regulation, on the other hand, gets much more complicated for those state and local officials who live and work in jurisdictions that have voted to approve some degree of legality for the drug. As many as 30 states have done so, whether it’s by decriminalizing the possession of the drug, voting to approve the medicinal use of cannabis, or in the case of 10 states, approving its outright recreational use for adults.

Read article